All three models will come with Kinect 2. It would be stupid to split their market. A bigger question is will there be an optical drive? 16 GB flash memory will be even cheaper in eighteen months, and games could come on cards. The two more expensive models might still include an optical drive for playing 360 games and use as a media center.

If the population was 3.5 billion, would innovation and invention happen more than twice as slowly? I see no reason why it would. After a certain point, there are more than enough people to fill all the roles and industries and have economies of scale. Further population brings much fewer benefits.

An article in The Atlantic suggests the infrastructure being built is only for the extraction of natural resources, and for some roads leading to the homes of the rulers. Sometimes the infrastructure overlaps with where it will help the local population, but far from always. The Chinese are bringing in their own workers and not training Africans. So unless the African countries push back for better deals and training and employing their own citizens, no China won't do it.

How many potential converts from facebook care about the real names policy? I say no more than fifteen percent, and probably less than five percent. The real names controversy only matters to a teeny, tiny minority.

I've heard the looks-like-video argument a hundred times. Maybe when we think of video we're thinking of typical video production values. As in lower quality sets, lighting, acting, stories and writing. All things that give video a bad name. If you'd agree the best stuff on TV is as immersive as good film, then The Hobbit should be great.

BTW I don't think all movies need to be 48, like many dramas, but fantasy, action, and sci-fi visual feasts will look better and have a bigger wow-factor than at 24.

Sorry but you misunderstand my point. The dash-cam network won't be as effective at catching and also at deterring crime for the reasons you identified. I brought it up to point out it's coming. That degree of privacy will be lost anyway. I hope when the police system shows a crime just happened, that people will upload or set their dash system to automatically upload what it saw driving through the area. I'm still in favor of a government system that works better. Also if the system starts sending out tickets for breaking the average speed limit like in Britain, unlike there, Californians can and will pass a proposition that raises the speed limits five or ten miles per hour. I can't help it if other states fail to change their government.

So again, if the government knows where you are and guesses what you're doing, how is that going to harm you compared to how the government can already cause you harm?

I chose 4K at 24 since the existing theater standard supports it. Also the bandwidth required is equal to 3d 2K at 48. Personally I definitely see the difference between 3d and 2d and the extra dimension makes things look better to me. Of course I'm not talking about stuff that's been converted, but actually filmed in 3d.

From my understanding, the detail of 4K is largely lost when projected onto perforated screens most theaters use to put speakers behind them.

According to this chart, once people are four feet from a 32" 4K screen, they won't be able to see the difference between it a 32" 2K screen. Was there a standard HD screen next to it for you to compare and see at what point they looked the same?

What are you worried about the government setting you up for? Seems to me they already have more powers than they should and if they want to render you to Iraq for interrogation they will. I'm heartened by the pushback against these powers, and also by court victories that are likely to affirm we have the right to videotape police. Abusive police are on the decline and our right and ability to tape them will frustrate and limit those that remain. In general, government corruption in many states is declining.

I think my chances are much higher that I'll be the victim of ordinary criminals than of the government. Not to mention my chance of being hit by a car. I think in ten years the good, defensive drivers will have wide angle cameras on the dash and out the rear window recording the last five minutes in a loop. Soon enough drivers will have them that many accidents are caught on tape along with plates and faces. Bad drivers will have to shape up or be reported and caught. If the loop is longer, like 30 minutes, police will have an app for smartphones. The app could check every fifteen minutes to see if there's been a police request for video footage from people driving on certain sections of streets where a crime just happened. Then the car cameras could help convict criminals for what they're doing along side the roads. So it's possible the public, wanting to defend themselves and help catch criminals, will set up a surveillance system of its own.

Does 4K at 24 fps look more real than 2K at 48 fps? I'm looking forward to The Hobbit shot and projected like that. Also James Cameron has suggested some of the eyestrain 3D causes is due to the low frame rate. So 3D 2K at 48 could be more real and impressive than 4K at 24.

Isn't MADD a bad example? Sure they want to make driving with any BAC illegal, but they don't have have the support for it. But if someone's driving is impaired causes a problem or worse, shouldn't they be held accountable for it? In a divorce case, if one party has been adulterous, aren't they typically at fault for it?

Defense attorneys create reasonable doubt all the time. I see no reason why they won't still be able to do so here. What I do know is with enough plate and facial recognition cameras, crime will plummet when criminals can't get away with it. That frees up resources to once again spend more on education than on crime.

Our species survived without fingerprints and DNA testing, but they've done great things for solving crimes. Plate readers and facial recognition cameras will make getting away with crime even more difficult. Wearing latex masks won't fool an intelligent system either that identifies a face with odd infrared or UV coloring and is walking a number of blocks to put distance between an owned or stolen vehicle and the criminals destination.

While it's only fiction, as Captain Picard said to the holographic Moriarty, "Professor, I feel it necessary to point out that criminal behavior is as unacceptable in the 24th century as it was in the nineteenth - and very much harder to get away with."

This technology could nearly stop carjackings, burglaries, identify suspects near the scene of arsons, rapes and murders, and catch all those and muggings on camera. We as a society lament spending more on police and dealing with crime than we do on education. Imagine if crime becomes so difficult to get away with, that many criminals give it up? Then we really could spend freed up resources on education, rehabilitation, and job training to turn our society around.